Thursday, November 17, 2005

OK, so here is yesterday’s story…… Tthe day pretty much went normal thank goodness after the day before - UNTIL..........

I thought I would drown my sorrows Tues at the quilt shop on my way home. Well my quilt shop closes at 4:00pm so I never can make it there since I don't even leave work until 4:00 and then have over an hour drive to get to it. Plus I had to make up the time I missed inthe morning. So Wed I decided I would treat myself with a stop at the sewing store about 1/2 way home last night. They sell machines, but otherwise is pretty much a "sewing" store. But for some reason they have gobs and gobs of quilt books! But of course no one there could ever tell you how to make a quilt - which I find really funny. Anyway, I go there to get the Mettler thread because they have the 50 & 60 sizes. Can't get it anywhere else.

But first I stopped at JoAnn Fabrics - a new superstore just opened closer to work and I needed batting for some charity quilts - and I had a 40% off coupon - perfect for charity. I'll settle for warm and natural for charity - I'm a Quilter's Dream fan for my quilts. (ok I'm wandering here....) So I stand in line to check out. I finally am first in the line to go to the next cashier - and the lady at the service desk who has done nothing until now says - "is that all you have"? I say yes, so she grabs my batting and takes it over to her register. I crawl under the line rope to get over to the register and get out my credit card.Well it takes her about 8 tries to get the batting number punched into the cash register correctly for it to ring up. By now she is getting huffy. And in the meantime the line for cashiers is HUGE and people start standing behind me and she keeps telling them they have to go stand in the long line unless it is a return. Some leave some stay. She scans my coupon - no problem. Then I hand her my credit card and it comes back saying it needs authorization and she needs to call discover. Talk about embarrassing! We pay our bill every month so I know there is no way they shut off our card - unless someone got our # and was using it - so that makes me scared. Now she is all mad because she doesn't know how to call for authorization and she is paging managers left and right and no one is answering her calls in the store. By now I have about 5 people behind me giving me really dirty looks and the service desk person gets mad at me and says "This is why this desk is only for returns or cash purchases"! Oh man - I lost it a bit by then so I say "But your the one who told me to come over here, I wasn't waiting to come to this register". So she says "Yes but cash is faster I could have done that". Well she never asked me if Iwas paying in cash - geez. So finally the manager comes and they lookup the discover phone number and call, discover asks how much the purchase is (another totally embarrassing $17.65 - but I only had $5 cash!) and they give her a secret code to let it go through. I grab my bag and leave. Now the strange question is - why didn't my card work. I call my husband and ask if he got any calls from Discover saying they noticed any unusual activity (they've called us about that before when I've traveled but Mark stays home). And he says no - and also checks online and there are no charges we didn’t' make. And our last payment shows up as being paid. So I figure - ok, it was just this girl had no clue what she was doing.

I stop at the Sewing Store now. Get my $40 worth of thread - I stock up when I go there - and found the Liberated Quiltmaking book! So I go to the checkout, they ring it up and I hand them my card. Horrors of Horrors! The machine rejects it! By this time I'm really mad - what is going on. So this time I call discover. OK, first problem - they want my card # (automated phone message) no problem and the last 4 digits of my SS#. I punch in mine twice and it won't take it. Well then I realize it is my joint card with my husband so it is probably his SS# - I have never paid attention to what his last 4 digits are. So I keep punching buttons until I finally reach a human (took forever). I find out that back in July our card was one of a group of cards that had been hacked into and the hacker did something to the magnetic strip coding on our card. They had sent us new cards with new expiration dates, but the same account # - it all had something to do with the magnetic strip. Anyway, we never activated those because we just thought they were new cards for when these expired since ourcurrent cards hadn't expired and the new cards are those stupid little keychain things which don't work in the gas pumps. AND the letter never said anything was wrong with our current card. Well Monday discover decided to inactivate all the cards that were hacked finally -so they shut off our cards but didn’t tell us. Well they told me to get this purchase to go through the store had to call another # and get the secret code and I needed to activate the cards we got in July. So I finally get the card to go thru and go home.

Well it turns out my husband cut those other cards up because the letter didn't say they were replacements because of a problem with our current card - and they were those stupid small keychain cards so we didn't have them. Well man - he got on the phone with Discover and told them about his displeasure of what they did considering we have excellent credit with them for over 16 years. They've promised to DHL new cards to us - regular size - by 5:00 Friday. We will see if that happens!

So the good news - since I needed gas and some errands my husband wanted me to do last night and I did not have a credit card or cash -he had to go put gas in my car for me and run my errands!!!!!

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comments from wonderful readers:

Wow!! I think the prescription is "straight BACK TO THE ABBEY..for you" after all that.I think I'd have gotten mad enough to walk out..hate those rude cashiers, and when it's THEIR doing that causes the problem..oh ya, road rage moves into the checkout lines.

When we were in Rochester, I checked the home voicemail, and there was a message to call Mastercard with and enter a claim number they gave me. I did, and they told me that my card had been "compromised" and that they were cancelling it.

Whoa! that was the only credit card I had with me. The apt rent was on it, and medicines and gas and, and, and. Well, they overnighted me a card, and then when we got home, the one with my picture on it arrived via UPS. So all is well. But sheesh! Makes u wonder!!

I've had my card declined a few times while living overseas. My hubby will go back to the states and the company freaks out seeing two different countries and they stop the card. Course it doesn't hit my hubby (since he's in the States and could call easily), no it always happens to me here (where it's not so easy).

There's a target near our house that often rejects our card, for no apparent reason. Their system is wacky, but man, is that moment awful Sounsd like a terrible day, but now you get to go play with Liberated Quiltmaking, right?